Silhouette
by Aurontalia
Summary: Sirius in jail, and escaping from it. Songfic in my general-vague series.


Silhouette

This is J.K Rowling's Sirius, and the song is 'Silhouette' by Owl City. I make no money from this, and don't own any of it.

Please tell me what you think/what is wrong with it.

The night James died, Sirius handed his godson off to Hagrid. He was glad of it then. He didn't want the baby. He didn't want to look at that version of James, have to see his best friend in every line of Harry, have to raise his best friend and try to separate the two people.

He could put up with Lily taking his best friend from him, but he couldn't stand losing his friend, and having the replacement be his son.

_I'm tired of waking up in tears,_

He tries to escape the horror that the dementors heap on him in dreams. At first it works; he gets to spend a few hours asleep, in the dark black abyss that is sleep. But then when he awakes, he is drawn back to the cold grey reality that his best friend is dead, and he is in jail.

Even in his dreams the nightmares don't go away. If anything, they get worse. He gets to be there, when James is killed. Each time is different. Sometimes he's betrayed his friend because Voldemort threatened his family (but why would he protect the family that threw him away, when James was his real family?).

_'Cause I can't put to bed these phobias and fears_

Sometimes he sees Wormtail, Peter, he doesn't deserve to be a Maurader now, kill James. And he, Sirius, couldn't beat him. Stupid, fat little Peter Pettigrew outwitted him and escaped. The one thing he'd been good at, chasing down wrongdoers, winning physical battles (if not mental, as Moony used to say), he'd failed at.

_I'm new to this grief I can't explain_

He feels even more guilty over Moony. Over the screaming fight between them when he'd accused Moony of betraying them. It wasn't personal. That was a lie. It was personal. He was sick of everyone looking at him like he was a coucou, a snake dressed up as a lion because of who his family was. Ironic, that no one had thought Peter, sweet, silly, stupid Peter was the betrayer.

After a while, the dreams grow more complex. He gets to think about how awful Harry's life could be. He'd met Petunia once when he was about 15, when James had started going out with Lily, and had gone to meet her family. He'd escaped his family for the summer and gone to the Potter's, and then tagged along to make it a 'double date' as Lily called it. Prongs had bribed him with chocolate to get him to come.

Petunia had been shrill and sharp and grey at the edges, a sad shadow of ashes where her sister was flames. Lily wasn't the sort of girl Sirius liked (he teased Moony later that the kind of girl he liked was a werewolf), but he could see how much better she was compared to her sister, and he'd also seen how jealous Petunia had been.

And not just of Lily either. She was jealous of him, of James, of all of them for stealing her little sister away to a place she couldn't follow. He'd felt the same way when Regulus had started to pull away from him in favor of following the family honor. But at least he and his brother still habited the same world, even if they were at polar ends.

_But I'm no stranger to the heartache and the pain_

He could only imagine how awful she was to Harry now.

_The fire I began, is burning me alive_

The only thought he can hold onto is that He. Is._ Innocent. _

Not innocent of James and Lily's death. That's his fault, as much as Peter's. Peter was never strong, and James was his brother, his best friend, closer in some ways to him than Moony. Not innocent of leaving Harry, but he was innocent.

_But I know better than to leave and let it die_

It made a peculiar sort of sense in his head, and he knew if he tried to explain it to Moony, Moony would laugh and point out that philosophy wasn't his strong point. But it didn't matter if it made sense. It only mattered that he kept a hold of it, his obsession. He. Is. Innocent.

_I'm a silhouette asking every now and then_

Sometimes he couldn't stand it, and he wanted to just let it go, let go of that mad thought in his head (was he right? Or was it mad, and he'd already lost? He couldn't tell anymore. He didn't even know what day it was. It felt like decades since he'd been locked up).

_Is it over yet? Will I ever feel again?_

But he didn't. He couldn't use Harry that much as a reminder to hold on, or Moony. Harry made him feel guilty because he'd left him. Moony because he'd accused him of betraying James and Lily, which was worse than when anyone else had said it, because he was supposed to be Moony's pack-mate, and should've known. James had known. So he kept his obsession and buried his happy thoughts deep inside his mind, buried under a still lake filled with dark black mud, like the one near James' house, where they'd had mud fights in the summer, and skated over in the winter.

_I'm a silhouette chasing rainbows on my own_

When the solution came to him, half mad and his nails clawed out at the beds because he had to feel SOMETHING other than the guilt, he felt like shouting with joy. But the dementors took that quickly enough, and the swarm of them that came, waiting for more happy thoughts stayed outside his cell for weeks, months, he didn't know how long, while he seethed and waited for an opportunity to change. He had to make sure they didn't know he could, or they'd take it away, he knew.

_But the more I try to move on the more I feel alone_

The waiting almost killed him, more so than the previous torture had, because back then he hadn't know there was a way out.

_So I watch the summer stars to lead me home_

When they finally left and he tried to change, he almost couldn't and broke into a mad sweat, terrified that he'd lost it. But he couldn't. It was his way out now, his only way out. He hadn't been thinking of escaping Azakban then, just the guilt. It was very selfish of him, and he felt even more guilt over that. But he told himself that if they ever let him out, he had to be sane, for Harry and for Moony, if they'd forgive him.

_I'm sick of the past I can't erase_

But slowly the change returned to him, harder than when he'd first become an animagus, and he'd been the best of the four of them. The space between, where he had the mind of a man, but was starting to become a dog, growing hair and long black nails, was horrible, because it reminded him of the happy times when he'd first learned to change. He didn't want to dementors to get that part of him.

_A jumble of footprint and hasty steps I can't retrace_

He didn't want to lose those memories, or have them tainted by guilt. But they too vanished as he changed.

_The mountains of things I still regret,_

And every little happy moment was tainted, tinged with a dark gray of sadness and mourning. When a normal person was sad he knew, they'd remember happy times and cry, but it would heal over. With the dementors, each sadness became an open, pulsating ruin of an emotion, rotting from the inside and bleeding all over his mind and turning everything cold an gray.

_Is a vile reminder that I would rather just forget_

He tried to forget about all of those things. All the fun times at the Potter's; spending the summer out by the lake, playing with the enchanted glass fish and muggle fishing rods. Teasing Moony about his pale skin and sunburn, and teaching Peter to swim, and watching him waddle about the pond swimming like a blob of fat given hands. Racing James back and forth, sleek and silvery and shining in the water.

_(No matter where I go)_

He couldn't even think about his horrible family without guilt. He'd hated them, but not until he was older. He could remember being a little boy, and sitting on his mother's lap while she read to him from the family book, teaching him everything that was correct for a Black. He remembered chasing Regulus around and teaching his little brother how to evade Bellatrix and the girl-cousins when they came around. Andromeda had been alright when he was younger, but then she got older and more complicated and started being interested in girly things, like how she looked and what dress she wore, and not who won the latest game of Tig.

_The fire I began, is burning me alive,_

He sometimes wondered if it might be easier to just let go and go mad entirely. Turn back into a man, and just give up. The obsession was hard to hold onto, and whenever he was a man, he kept turning it over and over in his head, the dichotomy of being the cause of James' death, and being innocent tearing at his mind.

_But I know better than to leave and let it die_

But he owed Harry. He couldn't just give. Somewhere out there, living in Petunia Dursley's house, was a little boy who he was supposed to play father too. The ministry would never have let Moony get custody, no matter how good a father he'd have been.

_I'm a silhouette asking every now and then_

Sometimes he imagined how it might've gone if he'd stayed, if he'd gotten to stay out, and raise Harry. He liked that idea. He and Moony would have a little James running around (but he'd have t be careful not to call him that, not around Moony, who would lecture him about proper child development and separate identities and such. He knew that. Padfoot knew it too. But it was hard to do in practice).

_Is it over yet? Will I ever smile again?_

He'd teach Harry how to fly, and Moony would bandage up his cuts with the muddle iodine and soft gauze, and he'd swing harry up into his arms and tell him about his father. He'd watch the little light glowing in Harry's eyes, Lily's eyes, and see him run out to try it again.

_I'm a silhouette chasing rainbows on my own_

He sometimes ran around his cell as Padfoot, playacting out the life he imagined it. He'd play catch with Harry inside his head, and Moony would laugh and call him a dog and ruffle his ears in that way he loved. Padfoot had tried to ruffle Moony's ears like that when he was a werewolf, but it never worked. You needed fingers to ruffle ears properly.

_But the more I try to move on the more I feel alone_

But when he turned back into a man, the dreams of how it would've gone vanished like light eaten up by the mist of the dementors and he was recaptured by the guilt and slight madness of the place. He was doing better than the other ones, he knew that. He could hear them screaming, and sometimes when he was Padfoot and they screamed, it would interrupt his dreams and he'd curl up in a corner and howl like a hound for his pack.

_So I watch the summer stars to lead me home_

It was when he saw Fudge, saw that TRAITOR, Wormtail on the Weasley boys' shoulder that he knew Harry was in danger. He knew then that he had to get out. He forced himself to stay calm, to not crumple the newspaper at Fudge and shout at him. He had to get to Harry. He knew EXACTY what Wormtail was doing.

_'Cause I walk alone, no matter where I go_

He decided then and there that he had to get out. Fudge was useless, he knew that. If he weren't useless, Padfoot wouldn't be in jail. Padfoot was a nice dog, he never bit anyone, and piddling on someone's rosebushes wasn't a crime.

_'Cause I walk alone, no matter where I go_

He had to take time to shake those doggish thoughts out of his head, to try and formulate a plan. Once Fudge was gone, the dementors came back (of course they'd be sent away for the Minister's visit; don't want to make him feel bad about locking people up), and he had to escape and be Padfoot. But Padfoot couldn't formulate a plan anymore than he could do arithmancy in this form. It was hard to think up a plan as a man, to keep his head, and then explain it to himself while he was Padfoot.

_'Cause I walk alone, no matter where I go_

But he found a way. He found a way to squeeze through the bars, after weeks of starving himself, and crying as Padfoot while his belly rumbled. He wasn't supposed to be this thin, and often he wondered if he was starving himself for naught, if he'd just shrink away and die, or worse, get out and then die before he reached his goal. At least it would be over then (oh and how he hated that thought).

_'Cause I walk alone, no matter where I go_

He decided when he got out to stay away from Moony. His old pack-mate didn't need a half-starved criminal on his doorstep, and that'd be the first place they'd look anyway. As Moony had often reminded him, werewolves, even ones with magic, still weren't people.

_I'm a silhouette asking every now and then_

Padfoot didn't like that. Padfoot wanted go home and hunt and rest, and chase rabbits until his belly was full. Padfoot wanted to run alongside his pack. Sometimes he wondered what he was doing, if he could actually help Harry, as an escaped convict.

_It is over yet? Will I ever love again?_

But he had to try. Moony wasn't close to the boy, he hadn't noticed the newspapers. Sirius felt some smugness at that, as he had when he was younger when he'd beaten Moony at school on that rare occasion. For once he didn't feel guilty about his glee, and rushing heady feeling made him act silly like a puppy again. But thtat was good; Padfoot had always been a silly dog.

_I'm a silhouette chasing rainbows on my own_

He stole newspapers out of bins and ate rats and stole vegetables out of muggle dustbins. Padfoot didn't like the vegetables. The best thing about it was that he wasn't alone. He had Padfoot, and every time he wondered if he was wrong, if it was another rat, Padfoot was there to remind him. Padfoot didn't understand being a godfather, but he did know that the little-Prongs was pack, and so convincing him to go along wasn't hard.

_But the more I try to move on the more I feel alone_

But he did still miss Moony, and miss people. He was finally able to be human and not be crippled by guilt because of the dementors. Instead of being a half-mad man attached to a sane dog, he was starting to come back to himself and be a man again. He tried to stop himself from hoping that he could raise Harry, once Wormtail was captured. But that was assuming Harry wanted to come. His life with the Dursley's probably hadn't been that bad; no doubt Petunia had drawn closer to him once her sister was dead.

_So I watch the summer stars to lead me home_

When he was halfway across the country, far away from the aurors (Padfoot couldn't smell them anyway) he didn't go home. Not to Number 13, nor to his real home, with James' family. He didn't want to see the gravestones of the Potters glaring down on him, a dirty cur who'd failed his master. He didn't want more guilt. He had a job to do. He had to get to Harry.

So instead he found where Harry was, looking for the last name Dursley in the odd yellow books muggles kept in fellytone booths, and tracked him down to see where he lived. He got to see the boy once, taking a late night walk, his wand in hand. Padfoot wanted to go and say hello, but Sirius made him stay away. Even if Harry believed him, the ministry wouldn't. So he set off towards Hogwarts. Innocence first.

_I watch the summer stars to lead me home_


End file.
